Unsupervised learning of facial emotion decoding skills

Abstract

Research on the mechanisms underlying human facial emotion recognition has long focussed on genetically determined neural algorithms and often neglected the question of how these algorithms might be tuned by social learning. Here we show that facial emotion decoding skills can be significantly and sustainably improved by practice without an external teaching signal. Participants saw video clips of dynamic facial expressions of five different women and were asked to decide which of four possible emotions (anger, disgust, fear, and sadness) was shown in each clip. Although no external information about the correctness of the participant’s response or the sender’s true affective state was provided, participants showed a significant increase of facial emotion recognition accuracy both within and across two training sessions two days to several weeks apart. We discuss several similarities and differences between the unsupervised improvement of facial decoding skills observed in the current study, unsupervised perceptual learning of simple visual stimuli described in previous studies and practice effects often observed in cognitive tasks.

Improving empathy with motivational strategies in batterer intervention programmes: Results of a randomized controlled trial

“…The SBIP + IMP appears to be more effective than the SBIP condition in addressing the emotion-decoding abilities of IPV perpetrators, thus supporting the second hypothesis. A previous study found that adults' facial emotion-decoding skills are not completely innate and can be significantly improved through learning (Huelle, Sack, Broer, Komlewa, & Anders, 2014). Our data reinforced this hypothesis.…”

“…A previous study found that adults’ facial emotion‐decoding skills are not completely innate and can be significantly improved through learning (Huelle, Sack, Broer, Komlewa, & Anders, ). Our data reinforced this hypothesis.…”

Supplementing standard batterer intervention programmes with individual motivational plans may increase empathic capacity in perpetrators of intimate partner violence

“…The study confirms the findings of an earlier study in which the ability to accurately assess emotions through decoding facial expression was enhanced through learning 4. The increase in cognitive empathy (the ability to adopt another’s perspective) was likely influenced by the cognitive flexibility generated by problem-solving strategies taught in SBIP 5.…”

Dropout from Court-Mandated Intervention Programs for Intimate Partner Violence Offenders: The Relevance of Alcohol Misuse and Cognitive Impairments

“…These results offer a target for future interventions in designing intervention packages that focus on reinforcing treatment adherence in the first stages of the intervention. Additionally, several studies have demonstrated that emotion decoding and cognitive flexibility have improved through training in several non-violent populations [44,45,46] and in IPVAW perpetrators [20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30].…”